Even If I Could
by Malkaviankitten7
Summary: Even If I Could or five people who died for Bruce Banner and the one who wouldn't Inspired by Papa Roach's "Even If I Could", a number of people have died for Bruce, each leaving a scar on this broken man's psyche. But what will happen when one refuses to die? WARNING: Don't read this. Just don't. You will cry and if you don't you probably have no soul


Author's Note: Warnings for child abuse, suicide, character death, Bruce Banner abuse, feels breaking, risk of homicidal urges toward author. Seriously, you should just not read this at all. I am a bad person. I did a bad thing and I should feel bad. It took me over a month to finish this because it hurt so bad.

You have been warned.

I don't own these lovelies. I just borrow them and abuse them.

* * *

They say that your whole life flashes before your eyes when you die.

Maybe it wasn't his whole life, but as the needle pierced his skin, Bruce relived the most important and equally most terrible moments. Each terrible truth that led him to this dingy lab floor with a syringe in one hand and a handgun in the other. The doctor found some small relief in these visions even as it ripped his heart out to have to experience those times over again. Couldn't he have relived some of the good moments? Some of the times when he was at peace? Some of the exciting and overwhelmingly fantastic moments? The past year had been such a turn around that he'd have happily spent his last moments in reruns just of that time. Still, it would all be over soon. He would take their deaths over again if, at the end of it, he'd meet his own end.

* * *

The first death came from the earliest of his memories, perhaps the most scarring. He never did recover from that first wound. See, as much as his father's cutting words and hard fists had battered him, he could always separate from those experiences: dissociation, he learned the term for it years later. Rebecca, however, broke through even the best constructed defense mechanisms.

Rebecca was the most beautiful woman Bruce ever knew, even to this day. All warm smiles and welcoming arms. Her voice stuck out in his memories that had been so twisted by time and pain that he often questioned if it was really her voice he remembered or just another fabrication of his shattered mind. But she sang to him all the same. Her hushed soprano lullabies filled his whole frame with an aching comfort like the home you want to wake up in on Christmas morning when you've moved far from home. Of course, Bruce didn't know that experience, wanting to go home. The only real home he'd had until very recently had been in Rebecca's warm embrace, outside of which the storm constantly raged, threatening to overtake them both.

Bruce avoided looking at pictures of Rebecca. They seemed so flat and lifeless compared to the vivid memory of her face. He'd cling to her chocolate brown curls (the tropical warm of Kolkata brought the curls out in his own hair much to his pleasant surprise) and he'd let himself go into her eyes, the color of warm honey made stickier by the ever present tears she fought so hard to hold back. He'd been so small, so very small. He could curl up in her lap and disappear from the world with her arms around him.

Then, a crash, a slamming door and the angry shouting of a drunken psychotic broke her embrace. She stowed Bruce away, into the closet. She might as well have locked him in and thrown away the fucking key. No matter how much progress he made, no matter how much he healed, part of Bruce would always be locked away in that box, listening, helpless. Though he knew better, part of him would never forgive her for it either. She had been too busy protecting him to protect herself and even that young, Bruce knew she was worth so much more than he ever would be.

As smart as he was, even as a small boy, Bruce couldn't understand most of the words they were shouting. It just didn't make sense. Or perhaps, it had been too painful to let himself remember clearly. Perhaps the fear froze him so deep that the words could not penetrate into his mind.

"Where's your little monster, Rebecca?!"

That sunk in, past the icy terror. Brian had always spoke of him as "Mommy's boy" with a distaste as though he'd taken a bite of a particularly mushy apple and was spitting it back out. He just kept spitting, the word blurring in the air. _Mommy's little monster_.

"I won't let you hurt him, Brian. You need to go until you sober up."

She was so small next to Brian and yet, so strong, her voice so level, only the slightest quiver of unease behind her steady and commanding voice. Bruce found some small strength in her collected response to the rage Brian tore through the house. He reached up and slid the door ever so slightly, the old pane of mirror creaking with age.

That stole Brian's attention away from Rebecca and as his father's bloodshot gaze settled on him, all the calm drained from Bruce's body. Frozen once more with terror, he could only watch as Brian bolted toward him. The smell of cheap whiskey, sweat and fury filled his nostrils as he braced for an impact that never came. A sickening thud of fist on flesh and bone hit him and for a moment, Bruce was terribly impressed with how quickly he'd dissociated himself from the pain his father was once again inflicting upon him.

But the gargled whimper from across the room followed by the dead silence shattered those brief seconds of gladness. His eyes snapped open, gone wide with horror unlike any his father had ever managed to instill in the boy.

Warm honey eyes stared back from the ground only briefly before they turned a brilliant red, the same red that gushed from beneath her chocolate curls, staining the carpet and his soul.

A distant, broken voice cracked, "Mommy?"

It took Bruce many, many years to realize that voice was his own.

* * *

As the drugs pumped through his veins, a violent sob shook his whole chest, releasing the doctor from that awful memory. Even in the best of times, this past year with Tony, the nightmares of that day had often revisited Bruce in a fitful sleep. That terror of his subconscious was gone now. There was a sense of freedom there, liberation. His whole life, he had blamed himself – irrational, he knew – for not protecting his mother. He had hated his father for taking her. He even hated her sometimes, for leaving him alone with Brian, but finally, he could let go of the hate and the regret. Perhaps, he would be afforded the chance to let go of his other regrets and find some semblance of peace in this death?

There was still so much darkness, though, so much pain. Bruce had always seen the monster within; Brian had made sure of that. Ironically, as shattered and messed up as his father's abuse had left him, Brian's death scarred him even deeper. It had been before the _accident_, before the Other Guy, in a time when Bruce was supposed to still be human.

* * *

Bruce had tried to recover after his father was institutionalized. He still struggled, but he made it into Harvard and even managed to make a few friends. There were times when Bruce could forget about the monster he believed to be caged inside him. He consciously knew better, knew it was his father's psychosis that insisted on calling him that over and over, but when you're told a lie again and again, eventually, you start to believe it.

But it was getting easier. There was even a girl, a beautiful young woman with chocolate brown hair and dark honey eyes like Rebecca. And Betty, she was smart enough to understand him half the time. They took classes together and shared a group of friends. Most of the time, Bruce could convince himself that he was happy.

Of course, it didn't last. He'd been out late that night, studying with the group for their midterm in molecular pharmacology: a course he'd only taken because Betty thought it would make an interesting elective. Damn if her enthusiasm for science didn't turn him on enough to add an eighth course to his already heavy semester just to watch her first hand. Although he had no problem keeping up with his classes, there were only so many hours in a day. This nonstop pace had him dead on his feet most nights. That was better though; the more exhausted Bruce was, the less likely his sleep would be wrought with nightmares.

He dredged up to his apartment and checked the mail, even though there was never anything in there. Each step of the three floors echoed in the stairwell until he reached the landing. At the front door to his apartment, a hunched over figure blocked his way.

He cleared his throat and asked, "Excuse me. Can I help you?"

The dark eyes that looked up at him struck Bruce deep, his whole body rigid from the shock. He couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't breathe. His brain hit the brakes. Silence.

Brian broke the silence after an eternity. "Bruce, you- you look good, son."

"I-" he began, hearing his voice from far away, as though someone else had taken his body and used it to speak for Bruce when he couldn't even think. "I see they let you out early."

Brian nodded a little and shrugged. "The doctors helped me. They have me clean and on meds and stable." Brian stood, an awkward and achy move accompanied by cracks and pops of the older man's joints. "Can I come in?"

"No." Bruce heard his voice, still dissociated from the experience. "That's not a good idea."

"I see." His father paused, letting the silence hang between them. A challenge. A warning.

"You should leave, Brian."

And he snapped. Bruce didn't even hear what his father was shouting, though he was unsure if that was due to dissociating or because he had started running.

He ran and ran and ran.

He didn't stop running until he stood at the gates of the cemetery where his mother had been buried all those years ago. His clothing and skin soaked through and the rain falling hard, he stood in front of Rebecca's tombstone. Odd, he hadn't noticed when the rain started.

Finally allowing his awareness to sink back in, Bruce collapsed in front of his mother's grave. The rain washed away the tears streaming down his face and he threaded his fingers through the grass. He begged. He pleaded. He hoped.

Bruce had never been religious and often scoffed at the idea of some god watching over humanity. Had there been such a god, monsters like Brian wouldn't be allowed to destroy angels like his mother. Yet, in that moment, he would have given anything to know she was listening, that she could look down on him and keep him safe. All at once, he was that small scared boy again, begging for his Mommy to wake up.

"You don't deserve her forgiveness," Brian's voice broke him away from his pleading. "You think you can ever make up for it? You won't ever amount to no good, Bruce; you can't. It's your fault she's in the ground! You never should have been born, you monster!"

Strong hands ripped Bruce away from the grave and threw him several feet. He hit another tombstone hard, jarring his whole body, and looked up to see his father looming above him, something metal and sharp in his hand.

Brian's words cut into him deep before he could dissociate. "You did this! It was all you and I will never forgive you!"

And then it clicked. He swung a foot out, hard and fast, swiping Brian's feet out from under him. The old man hit Rebecca's tombstone with a sickeningly wet thud. Faster than he knew he could move, Bruce was on top of him, wrestling the knife from his father's grasp. Although his father did not struggle, Bruce kept him pinned down as his face twisted into a hateful grin.

Brian's dark eyes wide with shock locked onto him as Bruce commanded in a dark, inhuman voice, "Die for me father."

The knife slammed down, again and again, ripping into Brian's chest. Thick spurts of blood gushed over his hands. Brian's eyes had long since gone hollow and dead.

When Bruce finally came back to himself, he was clean and warm, safe in his room. That night and for many nights after, instead of his mother's death, it was his father's that haunted his sleep. Although he knew in some detached way just how real those nightmares were, he kept himself separate from the monster and fought even harder to keep that part of himself locked inside the box and hidden from the rest of the world.

As dangerous as the Other Guy was, from that day on, Bruce had known in an explicit way that he was far more dangerous. He killed his own father without hesitation and instantly blocked out the memories. Later, after his accident, he often mused that the Hulk was there to protect the world from him, not the other way around.

* * *

As his heart rate dropped to dangerous lows and his movements grew sluggish, Bruce expected to relive his "defining moment." He waited for confirmation of that deep down fear that the Hulk was there to protect the world from Bruce Banner. However, his next flashback came from five years past the accident, past the birth of the Other Guy. This surprised Bruce, but he didn't fight it. He'd had enough nightmares of his accident that he gratefully accepted being spared one more.

* * *

He had been on the run for five years, trying desperately to find some sort of cure with little success. He'd had a number of "incidents" and many had died as result. Still, Bruce had no choice but to keep pressing on. Then, the promise of a cure brought him back to Culver University.

It had been painful revisiting the campus, untouched, as if he'd never stepped foot there. Beyond the damage repairs, all evidence of his work had been removed. Of course, the army had covered up his accident and kept it out of the press, but Bruce knew better. He could still remember looking back on the damage the Hulk had caused, the dead and broken bodies... Betty.

Bruce's heart nearly stopped when he spotted Betty still there, walking across campus with a sunny smile on her face. He'd always hoped she'd survived, but then rarely did he get what he wanted. It took the doctor a moment too long to duck out of sight, though he didn't know that until later that night, when Betty finally tracked him down.

"I thought that delivery boy looked familiar," she spoke, tears welling in her warm brown eyes.

Bruce froze midway through packing up the hot bag. Even after five years, her voice hadn't changed. He wanted everything to just wrap her up in his arms and take her away somewhere safe, but so long as she was near him, Betty wouldn't be safe.

Without turning to face her, he spoke, "You shouldn't have come here."

"Guess we're both full of bad decisions today."

He shoved the food into the bag and folded it shut. Turning now, he resolved his face and steadied his voice. "I'll be leaving as soon as I can recover my research."

"I could help you," she pleaded, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "My father had everything removed, but I have a back up."

"Betty-" he stammered, his voice proving untrustworthy. "After what I did to you- Why?"

"It's not your fault Bruce. My father is the one to blame. He pushed for results faster than we could give and he kept us in the dark about what we were really working on," she insisted, taking another step closer. "Please, I just want to help."

Bruce regretted agreeing to that before they'd even left, but once Betty had her mind set on something, little could persuade her. She stuck by his side, though it meant losing her boyfriend, lying to her father, getting caught right alongside him. And when Blonsky was ripping apart Harlem and Bruce knew the only one who'd be able to stop him was the Hulk. As much as he hated it, Bruce willingly let it happen, let every bone snap and every muscle be shredded over his suddenly expanding form.

But then it was out of his hands. Then it was all the Other Guy. The Hulk tore through the city, destroying everything between himself and Blonsky. Most of the people were smart enough to get out of the way, but he destroyed so much. Deep in his mind, Bruce remained vaguely aware of the destruction that spread like a ripple out from his entire body. Years later, he would describe this as the time he broke Harlem. But he never spoke of what happened next. No one did.

Even Tony knew better.

Blonsky was down, consciousness wrung from his neck by massive green fists. Still, the Hulk continued pounding on the abomination's bloody form, over and over, each time with a sickeningly wet thud. The only thing on the Hulk's mind was his death

So, of course, he didn't notice Ross's men slowly surrounding him, tranquilizers and guns taking aim. The Abomination had been neutralized and now they were coming for the other monster. From the cold depths of his mind, Bruce called out to the Hulk, tried to warm him, but he just wouldn't listen. Begging, pleading, slamming his own small fists against his mind in vain, Bruce knew this was it. They would take him and he'd never see the light of day again.

"Bruce NO!" her voice broke through and everything went silent.

The Hulk stilled, turning to Betty, tears streaming down her face. He recognized her but then, so did Bruce whose pleading fell into a silent prayer to a god he didn't even believe in that the Hulk wouldn't hurt her. So focused on Betty and her safety, neither heard or saw the dart, only felt it.

At least a dozen more hit in the next moment before he could even react. Then the Hulk did react. All it took was a single sweep of an inhuman arm as he spun to face the source of the darts and Betty was gone, smashed against the wall with a wet crack of her skull. She didn't even cry out.

Bruce learned something that day. The angrier the Hulk became, the stronger he became with seemingly no limit. The rage that followed the realization of what he'd done burned through everything they shot at the Hulk and not one of those soldiers survived.

* * *

So many moments since that day were lost, just out of reach in the depths of his memories. He knew that after Betty's death, he needed to be picked back up. Bruce knew he had tried to take his own life when no one was there to stop him. Well, no one except the Hulk. But it hadn't ended there. He'd been forced to trudge on, convinced he bore Cain's curse to walk the earth forever alone.

He knew he'd set out to pay his penance and do good. He knew that after being dragged, practically kicking and screaming in his own quiet way into the Initiative, he met Tony. He knew that Tony turned his whole life around. Tony trusted him and took him in. Tony valued him as a whole and even came to love him. Tony gave him a new start, a new life, everything he'd ever really wanted.

But those memories were so far way, it was like another lifetime. It was like the list of state capitals you had to memorize back in the third grade or your multiplication tables. Sure, you had looked at that map so long ago. You saw the table and you added up the numbers, counting them on your fingers until they stuck in your young memory banks. It was the periodic table which Bruce could recite in his sleep – Tony used to make fun of him for doing just that. The knowledge was there, but he couldn't feel it.

Really, though, Bruce knew he didn't deserve to feel it. He never deserved the joy and the accomplishment and the love. He was a monster and destroyed everything he touched. Even Tony, that indestructible phoenix who had overcome so much, who had been struck down again and again, who always rose from the ashes.

Tony shouldn't have been alive three times over before he'd even met Bruce. He'd cheated death, but eventually, death comes for us all.

* * *

There was no battle that day, no super villain making a play for world domination, no monsters from the past taking hostages and making demands. It was just a quiet day in the lab. Bruce had been working on a new radiation therapy that was proving to be an extremely effective treatment for aggressive cancers. He'd been completely lost in his work when Tony's voice broken through cheerfully.

"Oh Doctor Banner," he said with a smile in his voice. Bruce loved it when Tony called him that, silly as it was. For some reason, when it came from his boyfriend's lips, it never failed to sound endearing. "You've been working too hard," Tony continued, slipping behind Bruce with hands on the doctor's shoulders, massaging in that too firm way that was only a little too rough. That was Tony to a T though, just a little too rough. Bruce loved that about him, the abrasive way in which Stark approached everything, even when he was trying to be gentle. It had certainly made their sex life more interesting.

"And what would you suggest, Mister Stark?" Bruce asked with a grin as he saved off his work, knowing full well that his boyfriend would be keeping him quite busy for the rest of the day.

"Mmm.." Tony hummed his approval as he spun Bruce's chair to face him. His hands were almost immediately in Bruce's hair and on the back of his neck, pulling the doctor in closer. Their lips less than an inch from touching, Tony's voice was low and tempting. "You should let me take you out. We'll go get lunch. Go see a movie. Ignore the movie while we make out in the back of the theater."

Bruce chuckled warmly and closed the distance between himself and Tony for a quick, chaste kiss. "Add a walk through the park to that itinerary and you've got yourself a deal."

Tony lit up, just like Christmas, and happily led Bruce out of the lab.

They'd opted for the walk through the park first, neither being particularly hungry. It gave Tony the opportunity to bring Bruce up to speed on his latest projects while giving the doctor a much needed breath of fresh air. He really did work too hard but fortunately, he had a boyfriend whose own workaholic nature was only overcome by the engineers desire to spend as much time as humanly possible with Bruce.

Although, at first, it'd seemed to be all about sex with Stark, it was moments like this that reminded Bruce how much deeper their connection went. They'd both been so alone for so much of their lives. Both had lost their mothers very young and both had fathers who would have preferred neither had been born. Both were emotionally crippled and scarred from pasts that were too much to really think about, much less discuss. And maybe that's why they worked so well together. Why they understood each other so well.

As they walked through the park, Tony babbling on and on about the latest Stark phone and Bruce simply enjoying the excited hum of his boyfriend's words while he breathed slow and even, a voice broke into their discussion.

"Spare some change for a homeless man?" an older, dirty man asked from the bench they were passing. The man was in rags, his hair a matted mess. Dirt and grease and god only knows what else painted what little skin was exposed.

Bruce watched, leery and anxious. Even after a year living safe and sound in Stark Tower, after his pardon, after having (but never needing) Tony's protection for so long, the doctor still had trouble trusting strangers on the street. Tony had no such reservations and with an understanding smile, pulled out his wallet.

The next few moments went so quickly, Bruce didn't have time to react. As Stark opened up the fold of leather, the homeless man stood and lurched closer toward the doctor. Something in his hand glinted in the sunlight and Bruce's eyes went wide with terror and recognition both of the syringe and of Ross. He managed a panicked, "No!" before Tony stepped between the two of them.

Ross's eyes narrowed in anger and he shoved Tony into Bruce. As they stumbled back, Bruce was helpless against the syringe in his boyfriend's stomach and the pained look on Tony's face. The engineer's body shuddered and spasmed before stilling and everything went green.

When the other Avengers arrived on the scene, all that was left of Ross was a few scattered limbs and a bloody pulp that had once been the rest of his body. Tony laid, lifeless to the side, his body still and silent. And Bruce... Bruce sat with Tony's head in his lap, trembling and sobbing. The doctor kept stroking Tony's dark hair and pleading with him to just open his eyes.

"Please," he begged, his voice cracking and broken. "Why Tony? It wouldn't have killed me..."

He found out after SHIELD's autopsy that the concoction Ross had injected Tony with probably would have killed him. Tony had sacrificed himself to save Bruce's life, but the doctor was too hurt, to lost to even begin to be grateful. In fact, he had turned quite the opposite, growing bitter and resentful. He'd tear through their bedroom, throwing anything he could, breaking mirrors and glass. He'd shout at Tony, demanding and angry.

"I'd never die for you, even if I could!" Bruce accused. "I would never have put you through this Tony so why?!" He collapsed on the ground, sobbing. "Why...? You know I never would... so why? You slept with a loaded gun and look where it got you Tony..."

It didn't take long for Bruce to get the results from Tony's autopsy, to get the exact chemical make-up of the drug that had killed his boyfriend and within a week, he'd replicated it, even improved on it a bit. The mixture would slow his body down, inhibit adrenaline entirely, block out anything that could fuel the Hulk and once it took effect, well, that was when the gun in hand came into play.

* * *

And so, as his life finished flashing before his eyes, Bruce held up that gun, no regret, no hesitation. He was finished with this world, with the pain and the constant loss. Everything he'd ever loved had been taken from him, destroyed in his own hands. There was nothing left for him here but pain and Bruce just couldn't risk ever recovering from this, ever being brave enough to try loving again No, this was it. He pulled the trigger and...

Everything went green.

* * *

Days later, the Hulk's rage finally subsided enough for Bruce to be given back his body, sore and broken and so close to death. Yet, he knew, he would never be allowed to cross that line. The drug and the gun should have been enough, should have let him die. After so many had died for him though – Rebecca, Brian, Betty, Ross, Tony – the Hulk remained the only one who simply would not.


End file.
